Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1887-01-06
JAPANESE FARMING.
A Great Industry Which Employs
Little Machinery.
The Mattock Used Instead OF the Plow-
Soil TILED for Nearly Three Thousand
Years, Still Yielding Enormous
ly-Laborers' Wages.

ly-Laborers' Wages.
OF 1abor-saving machinery Japan
has almost none. The pillow, the SYM
Dol of tillagc in Europe and America,
is held in low esteem, and little used.
The good farmer there will have it
only when labor is scarce and the seed
time is passing by. The implement
used for stirring and comminuting the
soil is a wide-bladed mattock. Some
times, in very heavy soils, pronged
mattock is used, but generally it is the
bladed mattock that does the work. 1t
is an awkward, heavy-looking imple-
ment but it is better than it looks.
The blade is twelve inches in length
and five inches wide. The handle is
five feet IN length, to which the blade
is hung at an acute angle, so that
when by a blow it is forced into the
ground there is a leverage for lifting
the earth. BY this instrument the soil
is not only turned over. but it is thor
ougnly pulverized. Often the ground
is gone over again and again till the
soil is thoroughly comminuted. Some
times a pillow is used by those who
have clay soils and large areas of land.
1t is not, as usually described by globe
trotters, crude, imperfect implement.
It is light, easily run, and does good
work. 1t is drawn by one animal,
!1Vy t>,,k
horse. If the pillow is used, the ground
is plowed and replowed.
In company with General Van Buren,.
the United States Consul General at
Yokohama. the writer visited the agri-
cultural fields near Kioto. the old cap
itaL There the conquering race had
titled the soil for more than twenty six
hundred years. We saw man plow-
ing near the road, and we stopped to
talk with him. He informed us that
he had harvested a crop of rice which,
after being hulled, averaged seventy
bushels to the acre, and that the win
ter crop on the same land had been
wheat, with an average yield of forty
bushels to the acre. In addition to
this, between the rows or drills of
wheat, early in February. he had sown
T. crop of early vegetables He was
then blowing the land the fourth time.
and informed us that he usually plowed
it eight times. In reply to the ques-
ton why he plowed it so often. he said:
In order to make the soil yield such
good crops year after year we must
use all the fertilizers which the soil
can transmit to the roots of the plants.
To do this we have the soil completely
pulv-rized. so that the roots can pcne-
trate every portion of it. Another
reason is that we put large quantity
o. compost manure on the land before
blowing. and it is desirable to have it
completely mixed with the soil" To
our expression of surprise at the enOr-
nous yield. he said that farther down
the valley the soil was deeper and
finer, and that it yielded better returns
than he realized, and that some of the
best land yielded fifty bushels of wheat
in the winter and seventy-tive bushels
of rice in the summer. besides the crop
Of vegetables between the wheat rows
In the spring.
To follow the year S ti!lage of a piece
of land we will begin in the fall, after
the rice is harvested, which is in Oc-
tober. The mattock follows on the
heels of the reaper. and the soil is
thoroughly pulverized and a generous
quantity of manure is worked into the
soil The wheat is sown in drills
eighteen inches apart, one to one and q
half bushels of seed to the acre being
Sown. As soon rs the new plant has
shown above the ground the soil is
stirred by the mattock, and as often as
every two weeks liquid night-soil is APP
piled to the roots. This continues till
February. when the seed for the vegc-
table crop is sown between the drills.
The tillage and fertilization is con-
tinued until the vegetables and wheat
are ripened and ready for harvest.
which is in May. The seasons are too
short for these two crops if the one had
to wait for the other. In order to gain
time and insure this double crop small
pieces of land are reserved from the
winter tillage and prepared for the
seed rice IS early as March. The soil
is thoroughly tiled and it is flooded
witk water to the depth of two or three
inches. Into this water the recessed is
sova till it completely covers the
ground. 1t rapidly sprouts, and by the
time the wheat is harvested in the adj
joining fields it is six inches in height
In the meantime the wheat is cut with
q knife much like the old corn-knife in
use in the Eastern States. 1t is bound
in bundles and hung up on bamboo
poles so as to be out Of the way of the
matsock men. who 60 over and over
the ground preparing it for the rice
plant
When tho soil is completely com.
tho ground is flooded. and
chem il is mixed and worked over
again and again. Then the rice-plants
are pulled up in punches and thrown
IN the groups of women and children
Who are standing half-knee deep in the